But before turning to his views on these higher subjects, it will be well to present our readers with some of Pascal’s more miscellaneous and general Thoughts. In doing so, it is not necessary, in such a volume as this, that we indicate throughout the edition from which we take our quotations. We shall quote from the editions of Faugère or Havet, as may be most convenient, and take them in such order as suits our own purpose of exhibiting Pascal’s mind as clearly as we can. For the same reason, we shall give such passages as appear to us not always the most just or accurate in thought, but the most characteristic or representative of the veritable Pascal, whose true words were so long concealed from the world. We cannot do better, in the first instance, than note what so great a mathematician has to say of geometry and the “mathematical mind,” compared with the naturally _acute_ mind (“l’esprit de finesse”), betwixt which he draws an interesting parallel. The fragment on the “Mathematical” or “Geometric Mind” was, with the exception of a brief passage given by Des Molets {165} in 1728, originally published, although with numerous suppressions, in Condorcet’s edition of the ‘Pensées.’ It appeared for the first time in its complete form, and under its proper title, in Faugère’s edition, along with its natural pendant, the closely-allied fragment, entitled “L’Art de Persuader.” We give a few passages from the first fragment:— “We may have three principal objects in the study of truth—one to discover it when we seek it, another to demonstrate it when we possess it, and a third and last to discriminate it from the false when we examine it. . . . Geometry excels in all three, and especially in the art of discovering unknown truths, which it calls _analysis_. . . There is a method which excels geometry, but is impossible to man, _for whatever transcends geometry transcends us_ [in natural science, as he explains elsewhere]. This is the method of defining everything and proving everything. . . A fine method, but impossible; since it is evident that the first terms that we wish to define, suppose precedent terms necessary for their explanation—and that the first propositions that we wish to prove, suppose others which precede them; and so it is clear we can never arrive at absolutely first principles. In pushing our researches to the utmost, we necessarily reach primitive words that admit of no further definition, and principles so obvious, that they require no proof. Man can never, therefore, from natural incompetency, possess an absolutely complete science. . . . But geometry, while inferior in its aims, is absolutely certain within its limits. It neither defines everything, nor attempts to prove everything, and must, so far, yield its pretension to be an absolute science; but it sets out